Snare (59 page)

Not long after sunset, Zhil the butler came into the blue parlour, where the three of them were sitting, and announced dinner. Walking into a dining room with Idres made Zayn feel that they were still the officers they once had been, serving in the same regiment, loyal to Jezro’s father, a Great Khan they could admire, even though Dookis Marya’s luxurious white room, gleaming with lamplight, had nothing in common with the grim, grey officers’ mess of a border fort. The khan took his place at the head of the table, with Warkannan on his right, and Zayn next to Warkannan, just as they’d always seated themselves. Soutan came into the dining room, smiled pleasantly all round, and sat down opposite Warkannan. Beside his place on the table lay an empty place setting. When Jezro pointed at it, Soutan shrugged.

‘He won’t eat at the same table with Hassan,’ Soutan said. ‘I tried to talk with him, but he threw me out of his room. I’m surprised you couldn’t hear him screaming at me to get out.’

‘I did, actually. I’ll go talk to him.’ Warkannan shoved his chair back, but Jezro leaned over and caught his arm.

‘Stay here and eat,’ Jezro said. ‘I’m the only one he can’t throw out. I’ll go.’ He got up, then glanced Zayn’s way. ‘Warkannan’s nephew, Arkazo.’

‘Yes sir.’ Zayn winced as he remembered the outburst of the night before. ‘Please, tell him how much I regret –’

‘If there’s any fault,’ Warkannan broke in, ‘it’s mine. I made the decision to go hunting you.’

‘Not hunting me,’ Zayn said. ‘Hunting a threat, hunting one of the Chosen. Someone you didn’t know.’

Jezro took his walking stick, which had been leaning against the wall, and limped out of the room. Soutan watched him go, then looked at Warkannan. ‘That conversation,’ Soutan drawled, ‘was enough to terrify any sane man.’

‘And just what do you mean by that?’ Warkannan said.

‘To hear you all busily excusing each other for that poor boy’s death, that’s what,’ Soutan said. ‘I cannot believe how calloused you all are.’

‘You bastard!’ Zayn said. ‘After the way you tried to get me killed? In that temple?’

Soutan flinched and twisted in his chair.

‘Jezro doesn’t know the truth of that,’ Warkannan murmured. ‘Let’s leave it that way, all right, Zayn?’

‘If
you
say so.’

‘Thanks, I do.’ Warkannan turned to Soutan. ‘Listen, you, have you ever been in a battle? No? I didn’t think so, and that means you have no right to judge Zayn or me or any of us. Things like this happen in war. Sometimes men get killed by their own units by sheer mistake. It’s hell when it happens, and it tears your heart out, but you’ve got to put it behind you. We all share the same risk of dying, no matter who kills us. Yes, it does make you cold and harsh. Living with death does that to a man. That’s just the way it is.’

Soutan sat open-mouthed, unable to speak. Two servants came in, carrying baskets of warm bread and bowls of soup. Warkannan sat back in his chair and glared across the table. Soutan looked terrified, Zayn realized, and his contempt for the sorcerer deepened even further. He failed to understand how Jezro Khan could consider this man his friend. Unless, of course, the khan had never seen the true Soutan, a shape-changer in more ways than one.

Zayn concentrated on eating, as did the others. He had a hard time of it using only his left hand. In a few minutes Jezro returned alone. He leaned his stick against the wall, then sat down with a troubled glance and a shrug for Warkannan.

‘He’ll come out when he’s hungry enough,’ Jezro said at last. ‘I decided that issuing a direct order was a good way to make things worse, so I didn’t.’

‘Thank you,’ Warkannan said. ‘I’ll talk with him later.’

The servants returned with steaming pots of tay. Jezro waited till they’d poured and left again.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Here we all are.’

‘Yes,’ Warkannan said. ‘It’s time to think of heading back to Kazrajistan.’

‘Like a shen with a stick, that’s you, Idres,’ Jezro said. ‘But you’re right enough that it’s time I made up my mind.’

‘I take it you haven’t?’ Zayn said.

‘No. I’m sorry. I feel torn in half. But we’ll have to wait here for a while, anyway. With zhundars on the prowl everywhere, hunting for Soutan, we can’t just hit the road in broad daylight.’

‘I have to agree, yes,’ Warkannan said.

‘I wonder, though,’ Jezro went on, ‘how long the hunt will last. Marya’s put a stop to it here in Burgunee. Well, actually, I was the one who did, using her stationery – let’s be honest – but then, that’s what she hired me for, writing letters. Anyway, as for Dordan, I know what zhundars are like. They’ll keep on a case as long as it’s fresh, but after a few weeks with no progress, they ease up.’

‘So what are you thinking?’ Warkannan said. ‘We stay here and let the hunt in Dordan tire itself out?’

‘Something like that, yes. Any better ideas?’

Warkannan shrugged. In a fit of profound concentration, Soutan was chasing bits of bread around his soup with a spoon. Jezro leaned forward to speak to Zayn.

‘Do you know what we’re talking about?’ he said. ‘Yarl’s political enemies had him indicted on false charges.’

‘False, sir?’ Zayn said. ‘You mean the rape and aggravated battery of Rozi Millou?’

Soutan dropped his spoon into his bowl with a splatter. Zayn glanced over to see him pale.

‘Yes,’ Jezro said. ‘What do you know about that?’

‘Well, sir, I went to Sarla with the spirit rider from my comnee,’ Zayn began. ‘Ammadin and I met the girl’s mother. She asked Ammadin to talk with her daughter, to try to heal her. The girl’s been broken like a stick.’ He swung around and stared Soutan in the face. ‘Spirit riders can smell when someone’s lying. I bet you know it, too. That poor child! Rozi was telling the truth, all right. She was trembling. She can’t forget the way you choked her. It’s still in her dreams.’

Zayn heard Jezro’s chair scrape as the khan got up, heard Warkannan swear under his breath. He never looked away from Soutan, who had gone from pale to grey pallor. Big drops of sweat ran down his face and dripped onto the collar of his smock.

‘How old is this girl?’ Jezro said.

‘Sixteen when he raped her, sir. Eighteen now. He attacked two other girls, too, but I don’t know all the details there. One of them was so afraid he’d kill her that she didn’t testify.’

Soutan’s head swayed on the edge of a faint – whether real or feigned, Zayn didn’t know or care. Soutan recovered himself, then swivelled in his chair to face Jezro, who took a few steps and towered over him.

‘He’s lying,’ Soutan stammered. ‘It’s not true.’

‘Oh?’ Jezro said calmly. ‘Why would he lie?’

Caught, Soutan looked up at Jezro and gasped for breath with an hysterical little panting sound. Jezro grabbed Soutan by the shoulders, hauled him out of the chair, and shook him.

‘You lied to me,’ Jezro snarled. ‘God damn you. You lied to me.’

‘It’s not true.’ Soutan twisted free and stepped back. ‘It’s not true.’

‘Sir?’ Zayn heard his own voice growling in his throat. ‘If you want more evidence, there was another case in Kors. A whore who turned up dead after taking Soutan’s money.’

‘I remember something about that.’ Jezro’s eyes went wide. ‘I never heard who was responsible, though, except it was someone from –’ he hesitated, then sighed, ‘from Dordan.’

‘God damn you!’ Soutan grabbed a knife from the table and heaved it at Zayn’s head.

Zayn didn’t bother to duck. The knife sailed wide, hit the wall, and clattered to the floor. Jezro stepped forward and shoved Soutan back into the chair.

‘Besides, these infidel women!’ Zayn went on. ‘Why would she lie? The girl could have screwed three boys her own age, and her mother wouldn’t even have cared.’

‘True,’ Jezro muttered. ‘I wonder why I didn’t think of that before?’

Warkannan stood up. ‘What are we going to do with him? Should I go get my sabre?’

‘No, don’t behead him right here, Idres,’ Jezro said. ‘It’ll spoil Marya’s carpet.’

‘I was thinking of back behind the stables, where it won’t scare the horses.’

Soutan started to speak; his voice trailed off, his eyes rolled, and he sagged like an empty cloth sack. For a moment the chair held him up; then he slid off and crumpled to the floor.

‘Huh,’ Warkannan said. ‘Guess he didn’t realize that we coldhearted bastards can joke around.’

Jezro poked him with the toe of one boot. ‘I wonder if he’s really out?’

Warkannan picked up a glass of ice water and dribbled it onto the sorcerer’s face. Soutan moaned, opened his eyes, tried to sit up and fell back, arms and legs akimbo. ‘You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?’ he whispered.

‘No,’ Jezro said. ‘The Canton laws are different from the ones back home. But one false step, and I turn Idres loose. Do you understand me?’

Soutan turned his head to look at Warkannan, hovering grimly with one hand at his belt as if searching for a sabre hilt. Soutan moaned again, then nodded his agreement.

‘Now get up,’ Jezro went on. ‘I’m tempted to let you lie there like a shen, but you’re a man under some definitions of the term, anyway, so get up.’

Soutan got to his knees, paused, shaking and trembling, then managed to lurch to his feet. He stared at Zayn with a hatred so intense that Zayn flung up his hand as if to block a blow.

‘House arrest,’ Jezro snapped. ‘Idres, if you’ll assist me?’

Zayn trailed along behind as they frog-marched Soutan out of the dining room and down the long hallway to his suite. Jezro opened the door, Warkannan shoved Soutan inside, and Jezro slammed the door shut and slid the bolt locked.

‘Think about this,’ Jezro called through the door. ‘I’ll be back later, and we can discuss things.’

Soutan said nothing, or at least, nothing that Zayn could hear. As they were leaving the hallway, Zayn glanced back and saw the door to another room start to open, then slam shut again. A servant, he assumed. They returned to the dining room to find a frightened Zhil hovering by the table.

‘Bring the main course,’ Jezro said. ‘My apology for the unpleasantness, Zhil, and try to keep this to yourself, all right? Eventually it’ll all have to come out, but I don’t want gossip now.’

‘Very good, sir,’ Zhil said. ‘I’ll tell everyone that Mizzou Soutan’s been taken ill.’

Zhil hurried out. When Jezro sat down, Zayn and Warkannan followed his lead. The khan picked up his spoon, looked at his soup, and laid the spoon down again.

‘Well,’ Jezro said. ‘Goes to show how easily I can be fooled, doesn’t it? I’m damned glad I have you two here with me. I’ve got to get out of the habit of trying to think the best of everybody.’

‘Getting back to Haz Kazrak will break it for you,’ Warkannan said. ‘Soutan’s small game compared to some of the bastards waiting for you there.’

‘What joy awaits the returning exile, huh? Don’t keep giving me reasons to turn your offer down.’

Warkannan picked up a chunk of bread and ripped it in half.

‘Yarl had such a convincing story,’ Jezro went on, ‘and Marya trusted him. I vaguely remember thinking that if a woman believed him when he said he didn’t rape the girl, then I should.’ Jezro stopped, staring at the tablecloth as if he were hoping to find a written explanation there. ‘Well, gentlemen, what shall we do about this? Turn him over to the zhundars? I can forge another letter, saying that Marya’s changed her mind and wants him arrested.’

‘How are we going to get back to Kazrajistan if you do that?’ Warkannan said.

‘Who says I’m going back to Kazrajistan?’ Jezro tried to smile and failed. ‘Damn it, I trusted the man. I thought he was my friend, I believed him when he said he’d been persecuted by his guild, and the whole time the ram-sucking little bastard was lying to me.’

‘I can see why that would rankle,’ Warkannan said.

Servants came in with disjointed snapper lizard en daube and bowls of vegetables, served them round, and glided out again. For a few moments they ate, but Warkannan seemed to have lost his appetite. He laid his fork down and turned to Jezro.

‘You know, if you don’t go back to the khanate, and soon, you’ll be putting your supporters in danger. We don’t want the Chosen infiltrating Andjaro when Zayn doesn’t report back – or arresting Indan, for that matter. The women will be safe enough, I should think. No one’s going to believe that women would risk their lives for an abstraction like justice.’

Zayn felt the roaring start, deep in his mind, but he managed to hold it back just long enough. ‘Women? I never heard anything about more than one woman, no.’ He gulped for breath. ‘My officers figured that if you were actually up to something, you were only using the widow Nehzaym as a cover, to make your investment group look legitimate, I mean.’

The room began to distort, as if the walls were receding.

‘Stop it!’ Warkannan turned and laid a hand on his arm. ‘Think of something else – think about Soutan. Tell me about this girl’s mother. That’ll do.’

‘Loy. That’s her name, Loy Millou.’ Zayn allowed his memory to present images – Loy drinking wine, Loy talking with Ammadin. The roaring in his ears subsided. ‘A sorcerer in Bredanee told me to ask her about Soutan. When I asked him about Soutan. Is this making sense?’

‘Yes,’ Jezro said. ‘Go on.’

The room looked normal again and its proper size. Zayn took a deep breath. ‘So, Ammadin rode with me when I left the grass and headed east to find you, sir. We found Loy, and she asked Ammadin to try to help her daughter. That’s how I happened to meet her.’ He shook his head. ‘Poor little Rozi.’

Jezro muttered something under his breath, too quietly for Zayn to hear, but it must have verged on blasphemy, judging from the foul look Warkannan shot his way.

‘Wait a minute,’ Jezro went on. ‘Why did the spirit rider ride along with you? Where is she now?’

‘She had business of her own. We were riding the same way. She stayed in Sarla when I left.’

‘Damned strange,’ Warkannan muttered. ‘I never heard of a spirit rider leaving her comnee.’

‘Well, it’s a long story,’ Zayn said.

‘We are all ears,’ Jezro said. ‘Divulge, Lieutenant.’

Zayn hesitated. He knew that Jezro was giving him a mock order for the joke of it. He could turn it aside by simply stating that he’d rather not discuss Ammadin’s quest. Jezro misunderstood his hesitation.